T Campbell's Blog

Okay, I dont think that's a little girl. The text refers to him as a "he." But that's a technicality.

So you're saying that the Hamas comics are evil. Comics have always been used as tools of propaganda, and I frankly dont think it makes it evil. I'm sure you're not calling for the discontinuation of the Hamas comics, because that would be pretty ironic considering the first part of your post is calling for free speech on the Internet...
 

You're right about the boy-- it's really poorly drawn-- I'll correct that.

Well, comics THEMSELVES aren't evil, but they can be used for evil. I wouldn't recommend censorship even if it were practical. If we removed everything that could be used for evil we'd be left with a pretty empty universe.

My points are that comics can be abused, and that some of these abuses are a good deal more serious than "phoning it in" or starting a feud. There is power in this form. Power should be watched.
 

Should be the next strip on in the PvP archives.
 

Not my day.
 

Pshah. Everyone makes errors from time to time, T. Don't let it get you down.

And yes, I do think that comics can be good or evil, just as all things. We just have to remember this: I'm sure Hamas thinks of their comics as good, and most of the stuff on the Internet (usually drawn by people in the U.S.) as evil.

Cultural differences and all that, you know.
 

Thanks for the correction on the PvP comic. I was wondering what the hell unicorns had to do with net neutrality, but I didn't ask.

I agree with Tangent in that this is a matter of cultural differences. You say that "power should be watched," but by whom? And who watches the watchers?

I'm not willing to make the judgment call that this is evil, nor do I know the intention or readership of the original site. Who are we to be arbiters of the situation?
 

This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
 

Since when did cultural differences excuse anything? Slavery was a cultural difference between the antebellum South and modern America. Witch-burning was a cultural difference between past and modern Europe. In those cases, and in many many others, the cultures were bad and wrong and there is no reason at all to suspend judgement on them. They killed and harmed and hobbled people out of delusion and mean self-interest, and probably, like most people, they imagined themselves to be acting decently and reasonably. Looking back from our own different culture, we can make moral judgements, can recognise their selfishness and paranoia for what it was.
 

Ah, but you are speaking from the mindset of a culture that does not approve of what this other culture is doing. To the average southerner back before the Civil War, I'm sure slavery wasn't evil. To some of the Generals and politicians who repeatedly took land away from the American Indians and forced them to leave their homes, it was not wrong.

And let's put it this way. I'm sure that the people of Hamas undoubtedly look at your way of life as being evil and vile and needing to be eliminated. Just as you want to stop them from expanding upon what they think is righteous and noble.

Personally, I think that using children as weapons of war is wrong, and that what Hamas is doing with these cartoons is horrid. But I realize that my beliefs are not theirs, and that my perception of what is right and what is wrong is not the same as quite a few people. (Heck, I don't believe in Hell or sin or concepts like that, which puts me at odds with quite a few Christians. But which of us is right?)

What is right? What is wrong? It depends on the person. Many people in this very country do things I consider horrid and wretched. But they don't see it as wrong. The same holds with these other cultures. Just because you or I think something is wrong doesn't mean they do.
 

One thought to keep in mind is that these children are being taught to hate because their parents, when they were children, were taught to hate, as were their parents, and so on. The Hamas aren't teaching their children hate as propaganda; they're teaching it because that is what they fundamentally believe.

The mindset that we think of as "hate," is to them "survival" or "freedom." It's easy to convince a population that everything an enemy does is evil when they've been taught the enemy is evil since childhood.
 

Moral relativism only gets you so far in this world.

I am perfectly aware that Hamas see their actions as justified. That's the freakin' PROBLEM.

(I am also aware that Hamas does not have a monopoly on atrocities in the region. It's ten years old now, but Joe Sacco's PALESTINE is still an excellent portrayal of the other side of THAT story.)

There are some moral codes that are worth respecting, and can exist in relative harmony with the Judeo-Christian one that dominates Western culture. Mainstream Islam is one. Wahhabism and jihadism are not.
 

Actually, moral relativism will get you pretty darm far. You use the term like it's a bad thing.
I just dont like the implication (make that outright statement) that anything that doesn't exist in harmony with Judeo-Christian culture is not worth respecting.

You still never answered my question, T. Who is supposed to be "watching" the power, and who is watching the watchers?

/Michelle
//stirring the metaphorical pot since 1982
/// mmm, pot
 

Well, it IS a bad thing... when it keeps you from acting against other bad things.

You know, there are people in this world who want women to have almost no rights, there are people who believe that other people do not have real feelings, there are people in this world who want to END this world. And they are prepared to act on these beliefs.

I can't just shrug and say these guys have a "difference of opinion" with me-- they are trying to destroy things I feel are just and decent.

Let's take "Judeo-Christianity" out of the equation. Falwell's not my kind of ethicist. But there are common values that most of the civilized world shares. One of those is tolerance. But another is moral courage. There are huge areas of uncertainty, but there are some things worth condemning, the things that cannot possibly work in harmony with civilization as we know it. There are cases where killing may be justified; ennobling killing and suicide as a way of life is not, not in the world in which we live.

Oh, but the Fedayun are just around until Israel is destroyed! After that, they'll turn around and start treating the Jews and Christians nicely-nicely again! Okay, first of all? YEAH, RIGHT. Second? The ETA on this cessation of hostilities is given by Hamas as 2027. Third: if ever there were a means not justified by its end, wholesale suicidal slaughter is it.

This is hate-mongering, pure and simple. It's the kind of thing I turned my back on my diocese for. I'm certainly going to hold Muslims to the same standard.

Who watches? And who watches the watchers? All of us. It's our responsibilities as citizens of the world to watch over each other.
 

So do you want us to watch, or do you want us to do something about it? And if so, what?
 

Oh, there's nothing we can do about it. Hatred and violence are ingrained in some many areas and cultures in the middle east that there is absolutely no way we can educate them out of it.

Now will any forceful method help us: every additional arab country invaded by the west is going to make the entire area far, far more violent.

My solution? Terraform the moon real quickly and ship the whole lot of 'em up there.
 

That's an excellent question.

I write these things in the hope that awareness trickles down into the right corners. I'd like webcomics readers to be aware of this sort of extreme, because it means that practicing a beautiful art doesn't excuse you from using it to project ugly sentiments, and that's something that devotees of the form (creators and readers) should remember.

I've spent a lot of the last year in calls for action that have more or less gone unheeded: for instance, my attempt to recruit major webtoonists onto ONR fell far short of my goals. These days I'm more focused on promoting awareness, which I think plants the seed for action when the time is right.

That said, I would love to see some counterprop, in comics form or otherwise.
 

Yipes, Adam.

There are things you can do. There are aspects of the culture of hatred and violence that are under strain. There is hope.

Me, I'm a comics writer. I do books like the upcoming ALLAH ONE FIVE and essays like the one in the History about religion and webcomics, not because these get me mad sales, but because they're important to me.
 

Whoever you are, whatever your particular talents, you can use them to make the world a better place and you owe it to the world to try.
 

T, have you considered writing after-school specials? I think a career change might be in order, based on your previous comment. :-p
 

Yeah, heaven forbid he encourage people to do something constructive with their time.
 

Aaahh! Michelle knows me, is all. And she knows I'm corny. But sometimes in corn there is truth.
 

A kernel of truth?